Open Doors to Smarter Justice 2011

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Open the Doors to Smarter Justice

Michael MaherLorraine Berzins


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Open the Doors to Smarter Justice

by Michael Maher & Lorraine Berzins

September 2011

Tis document is produced by the Smart Justice Network which is a collaborative eort o individuals andorganizations concerned about current trends within the Canadian criminal justice system. Please eel ree to passthis document along to others or reproduce excerpts such as in your weekly newspaper or social and service club

newsletters.

Your donation to the Smart Justice Network will help us produce resources on the sae and eective approachesto crime and its consequences and enable us to make these resources reely available. You can make a donation or

join in the Smart Justice Network by contacting us at [email protected].

Acknowledgements

Tis document was enriched by comments and advice o the Smart Justice Chairing Committee and EtheArchard. Te rose and the vacuum graphics were provided by the Canadians or Fiscal and Social ResponsibilityAnita Grace provided the editing, layout and design. Many thanks to everyone.

About the Authors

Michael Maher is a ormer President o the Church Council on Justice and Corrections and high school principalHe lives in Ontario and volunteers o boards o a number o provincial and national charities.Lorraine Berzins worked in Canadas ederal prison system or ourteen years. In 1984 she moved to the voluntarysector as a justice policy analyst and educator with the Church Council on Justice and Corrections, collaborat-ing or 27 years on national projects in partnership with community organizations and ederal, provincial andterritorial governments. She has also served on the Advisory Council o the Law Commission o Canada.


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Tis is a pivotal time or justice in Canada. Memberso Parliament will soon vote on proposed new laws an

omnibus bill comprised o multiple pieces o law andorder legislation that calls or more people to be putin prison and or longer periods o time. Canadians areabout to pay, socially and nancially, or a misguidedand costly tough-on-crime policy.

Perhaps, like many, you think that people in prison aresimply there because they belong there. What do youhave to do with it?

You have a great deal to do with it. And there are manyreasons you should care.

As Canadian citizens, we need to critically examinewhat kind o society we are building and how we arespending our public unds. We need to break withretribution and vengeance, or even the slightestpossibility that our silence means consent or what ishappening.

Tis booklet presents a number o pieces that highlighthe tremors going through the criminal justice system

Well start with whos in prison and then examine howeective prisons are and i investing in building moreprison cells is money well spent.

Come along, and i your heart is moved, make yourvoice heard. Government parties are advocatingor expanded jails and longer sentences because theythink you want it. Tey think you are earul in spiteo over a decade o alling crime rates. Tey think thismakes you willing to spend huge amounts o money on

locking more people up.

Lets say no to prison expansion, loud and clear. Ask orcommunity-building instead. Make your voice heard inpublic debates, in letters to politicians and editors, inyour blogs, in your tweets, and on Facebook.

Introduction


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Table of Contents

Whos in prison?

Canadian inmates are mostly young, non-violent, unwell, poor, uneducated,disproportionately Aboriginal. Many have not even been convicted.

Prisons are not victim servicesFor all the talk about tough on crime, the system is probably tougher on victims. Victimsface problems prisons cant solve.

Prisons are expensivePrison costs are about to escalate dramatically, a poor investment compared to safealternatives in the community. The social consequences and scal debt will translate intomore and more costs in the future.

Better ways to spend our tax dollarsWhat ways can you think of to spend $2,200,000,000 a year other than warehousingpeople in prison? How about schools and clean water?

Time for a new approachOther countries are choosing more cost eective responses to crime byintelligently reducing their use of incarceration in favour of alternativeapproaches. Shouldnt we be following the examples which work, not the ones whichdont?

What can you do?If this booklet has got you thinking, why not make your views heard? There are many waysto get engaged and join the conversation.

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1 Whos in Prison?

When we talk about prisoners, who are we talkingabout? Who is housed within the walls? Our neigh-

bours, our cousins, our sons and our daughters, ourmothers and athers, our husbands and wives.

Tere are just under 40,000 people currently in custodyin Canadas ederal and provincial jails. Approximately10% o our adult population have had brushes with thelaw.

Canada imprisons at the rate o 117 per 100,000 (2008-2009), higher than most European countries. Our rates

have increased over the last our years as the systemincreasingly over-relies on prison to deter crime eventhough the evidence is clear worldwide that higher rateso incarceration do NO reduce the crime rate.

Lets look more closely at who exactly we are locking up.

Generally, most oenders are young, single males. Almost 45% o oenders in provincial jails are under

30. Te majority are single (62% and 51% in

provincial and ederal jails respectively).

But more specically...

Are prisoners violent?You may be surprized to hear that most are not.

In ederal prisons, 69% are there or violentcrime. Just over 20% o that 69% are considered

violently dangerous and rated or maximum securitywhile the rest (44%) are held in medium security.

In provincial prisons, only 22% are there or violentoences, 78% or non-violent.

Are they well? As o 2008, 13% o male oenders and 24% o emale

oenders are identied as having a mental healthdisorder at intake.

Since 1997, the rates, among both males andemales, o diagnosis with mental health disordersupon admission, have risen by approximately 85%.

From 1998-2008, the number o ederal oendersprescribed medication on admission or psychiatric

problems has doubled. 80% o oenders have a substance abuse

problem (alcohol or drug).

Are they rich? 59% o oenders entering prison are unemployed. About 10% o Canadians live in poverty but the vast

majority o our prison inmates come rom that 10%. Over 80% o women in prison are incarcerated or

poverty-related oences.

Are they educated? 45% o individuals in custody who are older than 25

dont have a high school diploma. Te average level o education on intake at the ederal

level is grade 7.5

Are they Aboriginal? Aboriginals make up about 3% o Canadas

population. Aboriginal women represented 28% o all women

sent to prison beore trial and 62.5% o the emaleederal prison population

Aboriginal men represented 25% o menadmitted to sentenced custody and 20% o thoseimprisoned beore trial.

Have they even been convicted? Te rate o remand those who are held in jail rather

than given bail until trial has gone up 40% in thelast ve years.

In provincial jails, 57% o all inmates are onremand in other words, they have not been foundguilty of anything!


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2 Prisons are not victim services

Remember that old joke with the punch line all I gotwas a crummy t-shirt? Ever wonder what a victim

o crime gets in Canada? For all the talk about toughon crime, our current system is probably tougher on

victims.

Victims are oen ignored in the criminal justicesystem. Te public wrongly believes that the CrownProsecutor represents the victim at trial. Not so. TeCrown pursues the accused or the State. Others think thepolice represent the victim. Tey dont. Tey are mostlynished with victims aer their sworn statements.

Victims sometimes think that they will be compensatedor the injuries and nancial losses incurred during thecommission o a crime. Tey rarely are and generallywhat they do get comes with re-victimization,challengingtheir credibility as their claims are put to the test.

Tere are improved victim services and more advocatesor victims who can manoeuvre the way through thecomplex and oen competing criminal justice agencies.Still, requently, the only compensation or the victim

is in knowing that the oender will sit awhile longer injail. Not much or their troubles, is it?

Prison sentences dont prevent crime; they dont reducerecidivism or crime rates; they dont deter crime; andthey dont ully satisy victims needs.

As my nal recommendation to the Prime Minis-ter and to the government, we have asked that the

government reocus its eorts and its priorities ontrying to meet the real needs o victims o crime.Sentencing and the get tougher on crime agendawill not meet the real needs o victims o crime, whoare suering every day, who call our ofce every day,who have trouble making their mortgage paymentsbecause they have lost their job, whose kids are act-ing up in school because they cant get counselling.Tese are real challenges that victims o crime aceevery single day. Obviously we need to have prisons,

and we need to have programs or oenders who arein prison. I think we need to spend, as the PrimeMinister talked about yesterday, an equal amount oeort and time on the needs o victims as we do onthe needs o oenders.

- Steve Sullivan, Canadas ounding Ombudsmanor Victims o Crime, speaking beore the StandingCommittee on Public Saety and National Securityon April 20, 2010, emphasis added. His positionhas since been assigned to someone else.

Money spent on prisons and longer sentences is lostorever to the victims and the community withoutoering the victims and the community any services orany recovery rom crime and its damaging impact onour lives together.


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3 Prisons are expensive

Crime rates have steadily declined over the last 10 years.So why are we building more jails and keeping people in

jail or longer periods? Why are we continuing to pourmore money down the drain?

Why are we willing to incur a huge social and scaldebt to do things that seem at the very least odd andunreasonable?

According to Correctional Services Canada, or 2008-2009 the average operational cost or a male ederalprisoner is $109,699 per year and a emale is $203,061.

Corrections Canada currently spends just over$2,200,000,000 a year on prisons and there are plansto build 2,700 additional prison beds at a whopping costo $2,100,000,000 or $800,000 per bed!

Whats odd is the price tag on a proposal or prisonexpansion put orward by the government recently.Tey have announced an estimate o an additional $2.1billion or construction costs alone. Between the actualbuilding costs and the cost o the longer imprisonment,the costs will run at least $6 to 9 billion (depending on

what is included in the estimate). It will likely be muchmore or our whole country given that 67% o prisonoperational costs are downloaded onto the provinces,reports Justin Pich o Newoundlands MemorialUniversity, who analyses the costs o Canadas prisons.

Te ruth in Sentencing Act will increase the prisonpopulation by 30%. Tis is the legislation which no lon-ger allows judges to reduce prison sentences by two daysor each day a person spent in jail while awaiting trial now the amount o credit or time served is capped at

a ratio o one-to-one. Tis Act will bring another 4,000Canadians per year into our prisons, by CorrectionsCanadas own estimates. Tis is an enormous expensewhen you remember the average costs quoted above.And this isnt even taking into account the increasedoperational costs or provincially run prisons and jails(but about two thirds would be a good guess as thats theusual split).

Other similar new policies are restricting paroleopportunities and keeping prisoners longer with no

possibility o supervision or assistance or a sae release

Tere are alternatives! Te cost o sae supervision inthe community is $57.29 per day while waiting ortrial (with supportive housing included), one third theaverage provincial jail cost o $153.38 or remandTere are also many sentencing options that could beserved under community supervision at ar less costResearch shows these are just as sae and usually ar moreeective.

We know that in two years time the CorrectionalServices budget will be up 96% since 2005 and weknow that capital spending on prisons will be up236%... Te increase in correctional spending isjust the tip o the iceberg, obviously. Is that the bestapproach, or should we be trying to look at wayso dividing that money so that we dont see cuts tothese victims groups and those who are supportingvictims, but augmentation, and so that we dont seecuts to crime prevention, but augmentation, and so

that we increase community capacity to break cycleso victimization, as well as provide some money orprisons?

- Mark Holland, Former Liberal Public Saetyand National Security Critic, speaking beorethe House Parliamentary Standing Committeeon Public Saety and National Security, April 202010

Look at the return on the investment rom prison costs:

are we holding our amilies to ransom or the social andscal debt such wanton spending will mean to us in theuture?

Because money spent needlessly on prison and jail ismoney ripped away rom meeting the real needs o

victims, amilies and communities, we are creating ahuge burden o social and nancial debt. Such a plan isodd,unreasonable and simply not eective or anyone.


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4 Better ways to spend our tax dollarsIncarceration is expensive. According to Ron Evans,Grand Chie o the Assembly o Manitoba Chies, com-munity development is cheaper and way more eective.

In response to a ederal government announcement oa proposal to spend $2.1 billion (in construction costsalone) to create 2,700 new prison beds or $800,000per bed Evans pointed out that in Manitoba at thetime o the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, about 25% othose in prison were there because they were too poorto pay their nes - over 60% o those ne deaulterswere Aboriginal.

Evans noted that in Manitoba, First Nations, Mtis,

and Inuit have both the highest rate o drop-out romhigh school and the highest rate o incarceration.Report aer report indicates that the drop-out rate isdue directly to chronic underunding o schools. Ata cost o $15,000 per year, a our-year high schooleducation would cost about $60,000 per person. Temoney to be spent on building prisons, $2,100,000,000,could provide or 35,000 high school graduates.One year in a ederal jail costs about $110,000 or theequivalent o just about three high school educations.

Te Winnipeg Free Press ran a series o articles onavailability o water and sanitation based on researchunded in part by the Canadian Institute o Health

Research. In one area, Island Lake, they report:

Tousands o Island Lake residents still haul theirdrinking water in pails rom a community tap andrely on outhouses or latrine buckets that somedump on the ground close to home. What will ittake or these Manitobans to secure what the UnitedNations recognizes as an essential human right tosae water and sanitation?

For a household o residents retro-tting the homes

and the community or drinking water and sanitationwould be a one-time cost o $35,000 per home. Withthe money destined or prisons, 60,000 homes could bedelivered rom third world conditions.

Evans asks, is it any surprise the vast majority o thoseincarcerated in Manitoba are indigenous people whenone in our First Nation children in the province live inpoverty? Tis is a statistic in a country with one o thehighest standards o living in the world.

Sure, prisons can eectively separate violent, dangerousand high-risk oenders rom society and keep themo the streets. But remember, the majority o prison-ers are there or non-violent crimes (78% and 31% in

provincial and ederal prisons respectively). Is expen-sive incarceration the most eective way to deal withthis majority o inmates? Arent there cheaper optionsthat could be just as eective?

Making more crimes punishable by longer incarcerationwill make the criminal justice system slower, less eectiveand more expensive. Many correctional acilitiesare already reporting crowding in excess o 137.5%capacity.

What prison-ocused policies seem to ignore is thatprisoners will, in the vast majority o cases, eventuallybe released back onto our streets, back into our com-munities. So we cant just lock them up and orget about

them.I we expect prisoners to live crime-ree aer theyvebeen released, we have to prepare them and thecommunity or that. Oenders who are not given thetools to get out o the circumstances which drove them

to crime are more likely to commit crime again. Tismeans education, skills-training, housing, counsellingand accompaniment while moving to communityintegration.

Te most eective way to get tough on crime is toprevent it and to build community supports or oenders.Tat means investing in education, job-training,employment, mental-health, poverty-reduction.

Building more prisons to accommodate longer sentences

is like buying more body bags instead o treating thedisease.


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5 Time for a new approach

Jail is presented as a solution to social problems. Somewould even have us believe that jail is the only way to

banish our personal ear o being victimized.

However, the Correctional Investigator o CanadaHoward Sapers thinks that preventative measureshave a cost eectiveness ratio o 7-15:1, that is, everydollar spent on community development / preventativemeasures will save 7-15 dollars spent on jails. He echoesthe statistics on Aboriginal imprisonment and pointsout that the numbers just cannot be accounted orunless there is a systemic discrimination towards

Aboriginals in the justice system and inside the prisons.

Given that almost all prisoners are poor, what i wewere to put some o the unds destined or prisons intopoverty reduction and social housing? Te number ohomeless people who have spent time in jail is growing.A oronto study o 300 homeless adults ound 73% omen had been arrested and 49% o them incarcerated atleast once. O homeless women, 12% had served time.

And given that mental illness is such a pressing issue

within prisons, what i we were to invest in mentalillness treatment, especially or people at risk o beingcaught up in the justice system? Consider what hap-pened to Ashley Smith, the young woman rom NewBrunswick who was jailed at age 15 or throwing a crabapple at a postman. Despite her recognized mentalillness, she was sentenced rst as a young person andthen transerred to ederal custody when she was 18. Notsurprisingly, given her illness and the destructive condi-tions o prison lie, Ashley resisted and ought with her

jailers this resulted not only in her being sentenced toadditional time and shunted rom one prison to theother, but she was even placed in solitary connement.Aer 17 transers, and at age 19, she strangled herselwhile prison sta watched without intervening. Tisstory is so terribly wrong.

We dont need more prisons and longer sentences,particularly when directed at already vulnerable people.We need to spend our money to tackle poverty, men-tal illness and systemic discrimination. We need to

invest in income security and community developmentnot prisons. We need to stop using the currency o ear

against one another and turn to the currency o mutualsupport. We need to build up each other, rather thanbuild up walls between us.

Heres a radical idea! Instead o building more pris-ons, lets close some o the ones we already have. Letsreuse to allow the ederal prison policy o expansion toimpact on the provincial scene where there are alreadyplans not just to replace aging structures but to expandprison capacity to accommodate the fawed ederal

approach.

I this sounds crazy, we have only to look at what ishappening in other countries to see that prison closuresare being implemented in order to reduce exorbitantprison costs and enhance community corrections.

Te U.S. spent $68 billion in 2010 on prisons, awhopping 300% increase over 25 years. Tey arerealizing that locking more people in jail has notreduced their crime rates and is crippling the economy

Former American Republican House Speaker, NewtGingrich, and ormer Republican Leader o theCaliornia State Legislature, Pat Nolan are preachinga new message: they can save on costs withoutcompromising public saety by intelligently reducingtheir prison populations. Tey point out that exasdecided against building more prisons in 2007 andinvested instead in community services. By enhancedcommunity corrections they are projecting $2 billionsavings over ve years and exas now has the lowestannual crime rate since 1973. And or the rst time inthe states history, neither the mentally ill nor low leveldrug addicts any longer ace a waiting list or treatment

We would do well to study the lessons learned by othercountries such as the U.S. who have ound that theycan save money and improve community services byclosing prisons and opening the doors o treatmentcentres, housing services, schools and hospitals.


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6 What can you do?

Make your voices heard or compassionate, sae andeective alternatives.

Te questions Canadians must ask themselves andtheir members o Parliament are these: How manybillions o dollars are we willing to spend every yearor a vague sense o satisaction? How many prisonguards are we willing to put at extra risk in crowdedconditions? How many young oenders are we will-ing to turn into reoenders? How are we going topay or all this?

- Editorial rom Te Ottawa Citizen, Prison systema costly mess (July 22, 2011)

What we have are justice reorms that will cost usa lot more while making us less sae. Not only is thisnot conservative its not even rational.

- Editorial rom TeVancouver Sun, Approach tojustice not conservative, nor is it rational (July 232011)

Ask questions Find out about the repercussions the ederal tough

on crime agenda has already had or your ownprovincial or territorial correctional system.

Find out who in your community - prisoners andguards - will be aected by health and saety risksassociated with over-crowding in prisons.

Ask why Canada has so many prisoners on remandor how we are addressing mental illness and poverty?

Make your views heard Tink about this issue and make your views known:

in letters to politicians and editors, in your blogs, inyour twitters, and on Facebook

Send a postcard to your Member o Parliament andask them to careully consider the impacts o theOmnibus Bill as well as other issues like the highnumber o inmates on remand or mental illnessamong prisoners. (see Citizens or Fiscal and SocialAccountability or samples.)

Pass this booklet along to others and encourage itsreproduction in ull, or publication o excerpts, or

example in your weekly newspaper, aith groupbulletin inserts, social and service club newsletters. Organize a discussion group or town hall meeting.

Contact the Smart Justice Network or help ndingspeakers.

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Sources

Amanda Petteruti, Finding Direction: Expanding Criminal Justice Options by Considering Policies o Other Nations, Justice PolicyInsitute, 20 Apr 2011, http://www.justicepolicy.org/research/2322.

Approach to justice not conservative, nor is it rational, Te Vancouver Sun, 23 July 2011.

Bill C-25: ruth in Sentencing Act, Legislative Summary, Parliament o Canada, 24 Apr 2009, http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/Legis-lativeSummaries/Bills_ls.asp?lang= E&ls=c25&source=library_prb&Parl=40&Ses=2.

Crime & Punishment Series, oronto Star, Jul 2009, http://www.thestar.com/specialSections/crime

Correctional Services Canada (CSC) on mental health among admissions: http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/pblct/q/29-eng.pd

Donna Calverley, Adult Correctional Services in Canada, 2008/2009, Juristat Fall 2010, Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2010003/article/11353-eng.htm.

Gloria Galloway, Canada warned not to ollow U.S. tough-on-crime mistakes, Globe and Mail, 3 Mar 2011, http://www.theglobeand-mail.com/news/politics/canada-warned-not-to-ollow-us-tough-on-crime-mistakes/article1929448/.

Greg Simmons, Crime & Punishment Series, oronto Star, 29 Jul 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yXO4wh46vM&NR=1

Haroon Siddique, Tree prisons to close in coalition justice reorms, Te Guardian, 13 Jan 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/soci-ety/2011/jan/13/three-prisons-close-justice-reorms?INCMP=SRCH.

Helen Fallding and Joe Bryksa, No Running Water, Special investigation, Te Winnipeg Free Press, 2011, http://www.winnipegree-press.com/no-running-water/.

Howard Sapers, Correctional Investigator and ederally-appointed prison ombudsman, Crime & Punishment Series, oronto Star, 29Jul 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xh_PpJCMpM.

Hugh Segal, ough on poverty, tough on crime, oronto Star, February 20, 2011, http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/941753--tough-on-poverty-tough-on-crime.

Justin Pich, As the Harper Government Falls on Questions o ransparency, Much o the Projected Costs o the Punishment AgendaRemain Hidden, racking the Politics o Crime and Punishment in Canada, 26 Mar 2011, http://tpcp-canada.blogspot.com/2011/03/as-harper-government-alls-on-questions.html.

Larry Motiuk, Colette Cousineau, and Justin Gileno, Te Sae Return o Oenders to the Community, Statistical Overview, August2005, Correctional Service Canada. http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/rsrch/sae_return2005/sae_return2005_e.pd.

Matrix Knowledge Group, Te economic case or and against prison, update November 2008, http://www.matrixknowledge.com/wp-content/uploads/matrix-prison-report-dec-08-web.pd.

Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan, Prison reorm: A smart way or states to save money and lives, Te Washington Post, 7 Jan 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010604386.html.

Prison Facts, Church Council on Justice and Corrections, 2010, http://ccjc.ca/2011/01/12/prison-acts-the-costs.

Prison system a costly mess, Ottawa Citizen, 22 July 2011.

Rob ripp, Fewer prisoners taking treatment: Almost hal avoiding required programs, Ottawa Citizen, 15 Jan 2011, http://www.ot-tawacitizen.com/health/Fewer+prisoners+ taking+treatment/4114266/story.html.

Ron Evans, Te high cost o incarceration, Te Winnipeg Free Press, 17 Jan 2011, http://www.winnipegreepress.com/opinion/west-view/the-high-cost-o-incarceration-113864089.html.

Statistics Canada, Adult and youth correctional services: Key indicators, 2008/2009, http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/091208/dq091208a-eng.htm.

Steve Sullivan (ormer Ombudsman or Victims o Crime), testimony beore the Standing Committee on Public Saety and NationalSecurity, 20 Apr 2010. http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4448334&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=3#Int-3106002.

Vikrant P. Reddy, Restorative Justice with a British Accent, Right on Crime, 3 Dec 2010, http://www.rightoncrime.com/2010/12/the-idioms-are-dierent-but-the-issues-are-the-same/.


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About the Smart Justice Network

Our vision is a responsible criminal justicesystem which values justice and human dignityfor all victims, oenders and communities.Our aim is to help ignite public conversationabout the Canadian justice system andpromote smart justice eective responses to

crime and its consequences.Our method is the dissemination of comprehensive information on the justice system andon smart justice approaches and practicesand the respectful engagement with theperspectives and stories of people who haveexperiences in the criminal justice system.

[email protected]

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Open Doors to Smarter Justice 2011